Japan’s newest popstar outed as CGI creation

Miss Eguchi blogged that her goal is “to become a new idol like never before by taking the best parts of my AKB big sisters”. This was true, but in a creepy-Frankenstein kind of way.  Turns out that Aimi Eguchi is in fact a composite CGI creation using the body parts of the other 7 band members.

“Her less than organic origins were exposed when fans of the band became suspicious about the appearance of its newest member, remarking that she bore a striking similarity to some of her band-mates. While it is not unusual for new faces to join AKB – the band has 48 members with older girls often being replaced by newcomers when they “graduate” onto modelling and acting – something was obviously amiss.
 And there were other clues. Her birthday – February 11 – is the date of the founding in 1922 of confectioner Ezaki Glico and rearranging the letters of her name in Japanese spells out the company’s name.
Soon, Ezaki Glico was forced to come clean and admit that the nation’s newest pop sensation was a fake. It turned out that Miss Eguchi had been born from a computer programme and piece together from the best features of six of the band members. In fact, she had borrowed the the eyes of Atsuko Maeda, the mouth of Mariko Shinoda and the nose of Tomomi Itano. Her singing voice came straight from the vocal chords of Yukari Sasaki.”
- The Telegraph   link